Operation Phoenix: Affecting the Present
by Chris St Thomas
Summary: Crusader AU. CH 2. DESTINY'S DOOR. Holding onto the luggage rack on the roof, the T-888 ripped the passengers' front door off the SUV. The Machine grabbed one of Charley's legs, broke it and threw him out of the vehicle, into the Dysons's driveway.
1. Time Keeps on Slipping into the Future

Disclaimer: I make no profit. Yet. You agree not to sue. Right, James? Right, Gale? Right, Andrew?

A/N - A series of interludes showing how some things worked out differently since Derek, Charlie and Cameron TimeJumped back to 1997 to keep Miles Dyson alive.

West Fork, Nebraska

August 24th, 1999

"Hey." His voice was kind, confident, compassionate. Charley Dixon sat up part way in bed and reached for Sarah's shoulder. "Did you scream or something?"

"Scream? No." Sarah Connor turned to the left and set her feet on the floor, breathing erratically. Bare arms suddenly cold, the white tank top suddenly not enough, she hugged herself and looked away from Charley. Eyes still wide, she worked to get her breathing under control. She spoke quietly, "Go back to sleep."

Charley closed his eyes, reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. _Great Scott. It's happening. Again. _He opened his eyes and took a breath. He'd known this day would come, if he handled it right maybe he wouldn't lose her and John. Again. "I can't. I've got early shift."

He reached for her and wrapped his arms around her. "Are you all right?"

Sarah forced a smile "I'm good." She rubbed a finger around the engagement ring and the Wattage turned up on the smile. It was genuine now. "I'm great."

Charley smiled, too."You'd damn well better be. The guy down at the store told me any woman would be luck to have a ring like that.

"He doesn't know the giver like I do." She leaned in and kissed her fiancé. Gently at first, then with the beginnings of passion.

Charley pulled away and took a deep breath. He willed the blood up into his brain where he needed it, instead of below the belt where it wanted to be. "Sarah, let's move."

"What?" Sarah was clearly taken by surprise and slightly sheepish. She looked like she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She'd been thinking of leaving. Already planning which clothes and which weapons to take.

"No hear me out." Charley looked sincere and reached out to take her hand.

"Why would you want to move? You have a good job here."

"I'm a paramedic, Sarah. It's like being a math teacher. I can get work anywhere."

"What about that position you applied for with the State Emergency Response Team?"

"Yeah, that's exactly the problem."

"I don't get it."

"Well, I filled out the paper work and then we both started having nightmares. Something's coming and we're not ready for it here."

"What do you mean, Charley?"

_In for a penny, in for a pound._ "I haven't had dreams like these since the summer of 1997. And I didn't believe them then. But I do now."

"What kind of dreams?"

"Vivid ones. The kind where you wonder if you're awake. The kind where you try to wake up but you can't. What about you?"

"I always dream the end of the world."

"Does it go with a bang or a whimper?"

"With a bang." _And oh what a bang._ She turned to face the window and hugged herself against the cold dread she felt crawling up her spine into her skull. The big heavily muscled Machine with the Austrian accent had been back in this one. It was the first one, with long hair and a green jacket. It found John at school. And then the warheads fell. _Big badda-bang!_

Sarah turned back and looked into the eyes of the first man she'd loved since Kyle. Oh John had been right when he told the second Terminator that she'd shacked up with plenty of guys. She'd shacked up with guys she thought could teach John something: explosives, weapons, engines. But she hadn't loved any of them. Not really. And they hadn't really been good for John, either. Useful perhaps, but if she sized up a Terminator-turned-protector and found that 'in an insane world, it was the sanest choice...' Well, what did that say about her choices in role models for John?

"Charley, you should just let me go. Let me go and forget about me."

"I can't do that, Sarah, and you know it. I'm part of this."

"No you aren't. Not yet. You can still choose a normal life."

"I'm a former Marine who turned paramedic, Sarah. I run into burning buildings with firefighters and treat gunshot victims while police chase down the shooters. Nothing about my life is 'normal.'" Charley held up his fingers to make quote marks in the air.

He took a breath and continued, "I remember the big one with the Austrian accent. We all stood there transfixed as it jabbed a knife into it's forearm revealing metal control wires where tendons belonged and shiny rods in place of the bones of his forearm. Then he pulled the skin off and showed us a complete mechanical hand."

"How could you know that? You told me you were in Okinawa with the Third Marines that summer."

"I was. I dreamed it. I dreamed it but I didn't believe it until now."

"Why?" Sarah looked genuinely curious and a little puzzled.

"When I met you at the Halloween party in 97, you seemed so different from how I dreamed you. You were so calm and kind. So much more in control and rational than the woman who ranted about 'the men who built the H-bomb.' And you were wearing pink at the party, Sarah, pink. In my dreams that summer you wore all blacks and greys."

"Okay, I get that's why you didn't believe it then, but why do you believe it now?"

"Because as soon as I filled out the background check form, I started having nightmares. And so did you."

"Background check?"

"Yeah. It's required for all state jobs. I had to put down the names of my family. I listed you and John."

Sarah bolted upright and the muscles in her arms tightened, "You did what?"

Charley continued hoping his calm tone would help her relax. "I told you I didn't believe what I had dreamed. It was too far out. Machines from the future helping us commit industrial sabotage? And before that it was me and some guy named Derek with curly hair and a five o'clock shadow who acted like a mercenary or a special operations soldier. Oh and the girl! She was a slender peroxide blonde with green eyes. We hung out with the Dysons for two weeks. Watching ball games, cooking burgers and steaks on the grill. We all swam in their pool and the girl watched their son."

Telling her about the dreams wasn't helping any, "What have you done Charley?" Sarah got out of bed and started pulling clothes out of her drawers. "You filled out our names on a background check form and now..."

"...as soon as they put it in the computer, the cops making you will be the least of our worries. Something worse than U.S. Marshall James Ellison, fugitive recover section, will be on our trail again."

"What will, Mom. What's going on?" John stood there in the doorway to Sarah and Charley's room. Neither of them had heard him walk up.

"The Machines will, John." Sarah had relaxed slightly when Charley began to talk like he took the situation as seriously as she did. But that just left her on autopilot. "The Machines will."

"Then I guess we have to run." John didn't sound to enthusiastic about life on the run again. The last 22 months with Charley had been a healing time for him and his mother. And Charley had become...well no one could compete with the man who died saving a guy's mother. Yet, John had grown to trust and rely on Charley.

"Where?" Sarah asked just to be saying something.

"To LA." Charley looked into Sarah's eyes through the mirror on her dresser. "That's where it all happens isn't it?"

"No. I'm not going back there. Not yet." Sarah choked back emotion in her voice. Now she was paying attention

"How about Arizona?" John suggested.

"Arizona, then." Sarah said and breathed a little easier.

"And Charley's coming with us." John stated.

"No. It's not his fight."

"I want to help Sarah."

"Come on Mom. You love him. He loves us."

"I don't think he should, John." Sarah turned to face them. "He's not part of this."

"Yes he is. Did you think I'd never figure out that he's the guy who patched up Miles Dyson's shoulder in his garage next to the John Deere riding lawn mower? He's got no crow's feet, fewer lines on his face and his hair's darker than it was two years ago, but it's him. We will trust him enough to send him back in time to help us with Cyberdyne and to keep Miles Dyson alive. I trust him now. I'm not going, unless Charley comes with us."

Red Valley, New Mexico

September 1999

His mother was painting in the house in Arizona when John walked in through the side door, book bag slung over his shoulder. Brushing his bangs out of his eyes, John tried sounding excited, "Hi, Mom! Is Charley home yet?" He tried looking forward to things like football season, Charley coming home from work, every day that his mother didn't make pancakes for breakfast. But some kind of ominous foreboding hung over the three of them, like they were all living on borrowed time.

"He's on swing shift." She still hadn't looked at him. She squatted down, pushed the roller back and forth in the paint pan. Ever alert, she checked the doors and windows, seemed to look everywhere in the room except at him. "He won't be home till after the late news." Finally she looked at him and forced a smile, "Did you meet any pretty girls?"

"Yeah. There was one." John looked kind of dreamy for a moment. Her father sold tractors, or was it insurance? She was slender and she had a great smile. A smile that somehow seemed familiar. Like a half remembered fragment of a dream.

Sarah grabbed another roller off the counter and held it out for him to join her, "Come on, tell. What's her name?"

"Cameron."

Splat. Sarah's face turned as white as her tank top. She looked down at her now open hand. She looked farther down past her grey sweat pants and bare feet to the linoleum floor and saw the paint roller.

"Don't worry, Mom. It can't be her. This girl had brown hair and brown eyes. The one from the future had blonde hair and green eyes. Besides, Cameron Phillips has a pulse."

"How do you know?" she asked, a haunted look in her eyes.

"Health class, Mom. She was my work partner in Health Class. We checked each other's pulses, on our forearms, right next to that bone in our wrists. Her pulse was weak and erratic, but it was there." John saw the gears spinning furiously in his mother's eyes. The conflict they'd been dreading was coming. It was already here. They just couldn't see it yet. "Have we ever had a Terminator with a pulse? Did Dad tell you about any models that actually had a pulse?"

"Not actually, no."

"So, don't worry. It's not happening yet."

"Okay, but I'm going to line the backs of the living room furniture with Kevlar anyway."

x-x-x

Cromartie struck. Again. Cameron took three bullets meant for John. Again. The pretty, petite, brunette android ran the tall, lean T-810 down in a huge pickup truck. Again.

The Connors were on the run again. Again.

The sun was setting when they pulled off the I-10 into the LA suburbs and wound their way into the Dysons's neighborhood.

A remote control car zipped out the front door and bumped into Cameron's feet. The android stooped over to pick it up and looked right into the face of Danny Dyson.

Danny's face instantly lit up. "Cameron!" Not fooled by eye color or hair color, the seven year old instantly recognized her. He tucked his remote control carefully into the loop on his pants and hugged her. "Thank you for saving my Daddy."

"You're welcome." the fembot smiled awkwardly, "Do I know you?"


	2. Must be Some Kind of Way Out of Here

A/N -- Dragonlots is on holiday, so everyone give Metropolis Kid a hand for bravely standing for her and giving this piece a pre-read. Any mistakes are my own.

Destiny's Door

Approaching storm clouds marred an otherwise glorious sunset of pinks, maroons and golds. The somber mood of the sky matched the tension within the big Ford pickup truck as Sarah Connor and Charley Dixon had swapped of driving duties throughout the day.

They found their exit in silence and wound their way through shockingly normal suburbia to find the Dysons' neighborhood. The driveway was longer than John remembered it. The retaining wall was still in place where the neighborhood's developer had cut the street and the driveway at the front of the house right into the slop of the gentle hill to one side of the Miles and Terissa's house.

"Hi, Sarah, Charley, John come on in." Terissa smiled warmly and started to give Sarah a hug. Sarah stood rigid and stuffed her hands deep into the pockets of her raincoat. Terissa turned an ear to the back of the house and stepped away to tend to the child only she could hear.

The whirring sound of a remote control truck bounced through the house as Miles chimed into the greeting, "Yes, it's good to see you. I love the work and the teaching at UCLA and I have you to thank for it." The tiny truck dodged between the feet of adults and teenagers. "Who's your new friend?" Miles gestured toward the pretty, petite brunette.

Danny Dyson walked up next to his father and leaned against his khakis, controller firmly gripped in both hands. The the truck bumped the brunette's foot. Miles started to apologize for his son.

The petite brunette smiled and stooped over to pick up the car. She looked right into the face of seven-year-old Danny Dyson.

"Cameron!" Danny exclaimed happily. "I've missed you." He slid his controller carefully through the loop on his pants. The lad adjusted his ball cap and gave Cameron a big hug. "Thank you for saving my Daddy."

"You're welcome." Cameron stepped back smiling broadly and handed the truck to Danny. "Do I know you?"

"Yeah, I've known you since two years ago when..." the boy trailed off when his father put a hand on his shoulder.

Miles looked toward the back of his house. "Terissa!" He turned back to Sarah and Charley, "This isn't a social call is it."

"No." It was actually John who answered.

Terissa walked up with one-year-old Sarah held against her shoulder. A burp cloth rested under the baby's head to protect the striped blouse under her. Mother tenderly rubbed daughter's back. She looked slightly confused. "What is it Miles?" Her mind hadn't caught up with the present moment yet.

Miles turned toward her and opened his mouth as though to explain. He stopped and said, "Take the children and drive down toward your father's place in San Diego."

"But why, Miles? Our friends have just come to visit, and it's almost Danny's bed time..." she trailed off as Cameron glared at her.

"We're back." the Machine said as she allowed the blue lights at the back of her eyeballs to glow brightly for a moment.

"Radical!" exclaimed Danny. "Do it again."

"Oh! My! Gawd!" Terissa's mouth fell open and Miles reached over to take Sarah.

He turned back to the Connors. "Help yourselves to some water and wait in the kitchen."

Miles led Terissa and the kids to the garage.

The Connor Clan clustered around the island in the center of the kitchen as Sarah and John had done two years before, as Charley and Cameron would do ten years into their own futures.

The whirring and clacking sound of an automatic garage door opener drifted through the house . A performance car's engine roared to life. The car pulled out of the garage and the door came back down.

Miles walked back into the kitchen. "I would protest that we destroyed my work and I started the friendly AI project with Andy like you asked, but obviously she's here." He gestured to Cameron, "So, what we did before still wasn't enough. Is there another one after you, too?"

"Yes." Sarah replied tersely. She managed to looked both determined and on the verge of tears.

"Do you still have the explosives we left?" Charley asked.

"Terissa thinks I turned them over to the police, but I kept them in a shed behind the house."

"Good." Sarah laid 40,000 worth of Google and Yahoo stock on the island.

"What's this?" The scientist asked.

"We'd like to by your old Lincoln SUV" Charley started walking through the house toward the back yard. Even though this was the first time he had physically set foot here, he remembered it clearly from his dreams of two summers before. "Come on John. We need to rig the old Ford pickup we drove out here in."

John followed Charley and Cameron followed John. Almost like a puppy.

The AI researcher stayed in the kitchen with Sarah. "I knew I held on to it for a reason. I just didn't know what it was until right now."

"Look, you have to get out of here tonight, too." Sarah said trying to sound hard. "John is the thing's primary target, but you could be a secondary target."

"Okay, but only after you guys are out of here safely."

"No one is ever safe." Sarah had said that a thousand times as John grew up.

She had wanted to believe that they had been safe with Charley. He was a good man. He was kind and firm with John. He treated her with love and courtesy. He was her knight. His armor was his paramedic's uniform; he sword and shield, his kit bag and defibrillator; his horse, an ambulance.

And now the Machines had returned again. One to protect. One to destroy. Her valiant knight had chosen to fight at her side. She wished they would all just be gone from her life. But part of her knew that without the Machines she wouldn't have John or Kyle. And she wasn't at all sure how she felt about that.

"Sarah?" Miles said waving a hand in front of her thousand yard stare.

"I'm okay."

"What else do you need?"

"Who could have followed your work? Is there anyone at Cyberdyne who could have? Was the scrap sold?"

"I saw pictures in the news papers." Miles adjusted the collar of his button down shirt. "The scrap was a fused mound of metal alloys and scorched plastic insulation. No one could have done anything with it."

The researcher removed a small notebook and a pen from his pocket. He began to write, "These are the names of the top researchers in the field. None of them are at Cyberdyne anymore."

Sarah took the paper and started to fold it up. She thought better of it and began to whisper the names under her breath, committing them to memory.

Later Miles Dyson stood in the second floor window next to the intercom and watched the driveway. A ragged Terminator ran up the driveway of the Dyson's house wearing a red and black flannel shirt, carrying an AR-15 rifle in one hand and an MP-5 in the other. Dyson keyed the intercom, "Now!" he shouted. _Every time these people come over I have to get a new garage door. _Dyson stayed up there watching as the action unfolded below.

In the three-car garage the old Lincoln SUV sat next to a new black Lexus SUV. Sarah cranked the Lincoln and threw it in gear. The white truck burst out through the garage door and slammed into the Terminator. It's weapons were knocked out of its hands. It flipped over twice and rolled up on its feet.

The T-810 that had called itself Cromartie in the John's Chemistry class the day before, dashed down the driveway and caught up to the SUV. It leaped and grabbed on to the luggage rack on the roof with one hand. It's feet landed on the running board on the side of the vehicle. The Machine ripped the front passenger side door off the hinges and threw it down on the ground. Charley was sitting there and Cameron held a detonator in the back with John who had already taken refuge in the floor boards.

Charley kicked at the destroyer Machine trying to knock it off the side of the vehicle. Cromartie grabbed one of Charley's legs, broke it and threw him out of the vehicle into the driveway. Sarah swerved a wide left out of the driveway and zipped past the rigged Ford pick up with about an inch to spare. Her heart screamed at her to go back for Charley, but her head stayed in the game as the deadly Machine slammed into the bed of the pick up and got knocked off the side of the SUV. Cameron watched the distance grow between new SUV and the old pick up.

Cameron put as much of her body as she could between the back of the SUV and John. The 810 forced itself relentlessly up off the ground and started to run after the Connors again. As soon as it was on its feet, Cameron hit the detonator. The old Ford pickup exploded throwing Cromartie across the street into the retaining wall of the Dyson's yard. The impact threw it offline. A piece of shrapnel from the explosion jabbed into Sarah's back.

While the Terminator rebooted, Charley gritted his teeth and attempted to set the fracture in his right tibia, the large bone in the shin. It hurt like hell, but he felt it slip into place. He tried to stand, but the pain was too great.

Rain began to fall as, Charley tried to crawl back up to Dyson's house and the one remaining vehicle, but the Terminator was already standing back up and striding over to him. "Where are they going?"

"I don't know. We left without a plan."

The Machine stood over him now. One ear hanging off the side of its head, flesh charred away from its right forearm and hand. Flannel shirt fused into the skin that was left behind on that arm. "Based on your pupil dilation and heart beat --"

"Which are caused by the broken leg you gave me and the shock of seeing something like you. I'm a paramedic. I know." It was all true. Except the part about not knowing where Sarah and John were headed. Somehow Charley knew they were headed for a TimeJump.

The Machine reached down and bent Charley's left little finger back sharply, straight up in the air. Charley heard a scream and realized it was his own. The Terminator reached up with its left hand, whose flesh was still in tact and slapped the side of Charley's face to shut him up. "I have interrogated dozens and dozens of your kind. Hundreds. Three hundred sixty-two, counting you. And in the course of those interrogations I have developed my own algorithms for determining when a subject is lying. These algorithms are based on perspiration, dilation, heart rate, and forty-seven other non-verbal cues."

"I don't know where they're headed!!" Charley screamed. Rain water stung his eyes. He remembered something he'd learned in the Marines. Once a Marine, always a Marine. This was a war. A war for all humanity. Charley had volunteered for it. Dyson up the hill there, he'd been drafted.

Another one of Charley's fingers snapped back in the Machine's hand. He inhaled to inhibit his scream. He took several breaths, while the thing that looked like a man but wasn't repeated the question. "Where did Sarah Connor take her son."

"My name is Sergeant Charles Dixon. My service number is D0766421. I was born on February 29, 1968. I am an American fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense."

The Machine computed that it would take longer to extract the information from Sergeant Charles Dixon than the time it would gain by going straight to where ever Sarah Connor and the unknown cyborg would take John Connor. It's difference engine satisfied, it stood and began to run down the street. It's footfalls splashed on the rain soaked pavement

When it was gone, Dyson ran down the drive way with the medic bag Charley had left behind two years before. Terissa had wanted to hold on to that. Charley told Miles which pain reliever to use and how much.

Twelve hours later, the Emergency Room discharged Charley with three fingers splinted and taped and his right leg in a cast below the knee. Miles gave him a ride to the bus station and on the way shared the news about what had taken place at Security Trust of Los Angeles earlier that morning. Sarah, Cameron and John had broken into the bank and blown up the vault. No bodies had been recovered from the rubble. No one else had been injured. The vault had just imploded into a pile of rubble and twisted metal. Miles knew from his own memories of 1997 that they must have survived to send Derek and future Cameron and future Charley back. Charley knew the same from his dreams. The two men reasoned it out that the Connors had used a Time Displacement Field hidden in the bank vault and rigged to explode after one use.

Charley called in sick for work from a pay phone at the bus terminal. It was a two day bus ride back to Red Valley, Arizona. The bus stopped in every single, little, tiny town along the way.

Six weeks later, Charley's fingers and leg were healed and he took a couple of days' vacation from the Rescue Squad. He rode back to LA on his motor cycle. From his dreams he remembered the parking garage where the Time Lab was hidden in the extra electrical room.

Charley stood before the door marked 'Electrical – Authorized Personnel Only.' He remembered the code for the mechanical lock. He remembered that Derek Reese had scanned his iris prints into the Time Displacement Field's control computer during the summer of 1997. Even though that had been the Charley from ten years uptime, his iris print would still be the same. He wondered if he would remember enough from his dreams to program a Time Jump. Charley knew that he was about to make the biggest decision of his life.

Charley Dixon stood before the door of his destiny.


End file.
